Encyclopædia Britannica, 1768

I've never missed posting a thing or two on my blog every month since I started it, but I did last month. It's really not a big deal, but I sort of feel "defeated".. What I mean is I hadn't felt good and had been unable to work full time since I came back from the trip mainly because of a severe jet lag and chronic shoulder/back pains triggered by my flight back home. But, I've been back to work almost full time since last week, and this time, (for the May-post sake!) I made sure to take a few "before pictures" of what I was to work on. And this happened to be the job.

This is a second edition, 4 volume set of Encyclopædia Britannica published in 1778~9. This is a broken set, - it has volume 1(all plates), 3, 4 and 5, but is missing volumes 1 and 2. The client is a dear regular, so when other volumes are found, he'd bring them next time. He has asked us to rebind them in full leather with a facsimile spine lay out. Generally, Encyclopædia Britannica has red and black skivers, but for these editions, I used an olive color for both, as the client wanted them in identical colors. Two of the volumes were missing headbands, so they needed to be re-sewn. And there were some papers that needed to be mended, but other than that, this was a straightforward rebinding work. It just took me a lot longer than usual to complete because I'm still not in a perfect health and am not like myself yet.. sigh, I gotta go pop some aspirin now.. bummer..

P.S. My trip to Asia went well. Japan trip was reasonably productive without much dramas, - I got some Japanese paring knives for my folks and a blog buddy on the East coast, and excellent mending papers, as well. ;-) and the Singapore trip was fun, except for the day-one being hit by an unbelievable rainstorm till about mid-afternoon. WoW, I've never experienced rain like that!?! Anyway, one major regret was not bringing more $$$$$ to Singapore. Boy, how the heck do people live there?? I mean, I was warned about everything being super expensive, but when I saw a can of the cheapest beer at $8, I almost fainted. (hahaha) But I will go back there, certainly with friends next time. In all in all, I had a great time!